Eggbot
http://www.egg-bot.com/
The Eggbot is an open-source art robot that draws on spherical
or egg-shaped objects.
The Eggbot decorates anything larger than a ping pong ball, and
smaller than a grapefruit. It works by first importing an image,
or drawing your own in the free vector graphics program
Inkscape, and plotting your rectangular sketch onto what you've
mounted in the Eggbot. Then just center the Eggbot and make
sure its pen can reach your desired round surface — no
knowledge of your object's size or curvature necessary.
Watch Eggbot's inventor, Bruce Shapiro, demonstrate his
creation on "The Martha Stewart Show":
http://www.marthastewart.com/article/the-incredible-eggbot
For more design possibilities, browse the Eggbot plots freely
shared by the Thingiverse community:
http://www.thingiverse.com/tag:eggbot/
In addition to Eggbot, Shapiro has also created other motion
control machines, many for educational purposes in venues such
as the Science Museum of Minnesota, where he has served as
artist-in-residence. See Shapiro's K'nex Plotter, Slope Rider,
Archimedes' Limit, Geyserbot, and other teaching machines, as
well as his Pipedream bubble installations and kinetic
sculptures at The Art of Motion Control site:
http://taomc.com/
